


The Preservation of Fire

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Holiday Traditions, I have no clue how this Bad Bob backstory snuck in here, Jewish Jack, M/M, Plans For The Future, Slice of Life, family history and drama, grandmothers give the best (or worst) gifts, procrastibaking, references to homophobic extended family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 18:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: In the time between Hanukkah and Christmas, Jack and Bitty look to their pasts and make plans for their future.





	The Preservation of Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RabbitRunnah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RabbitRunnah/gifts).



> My apologies for posting right up against the challenge deadline! This is for RabbitRunnah, who listed 'creating new holiday traditions' as one of the prompts, along with the overall wish for 'Jack and Bitty enjoying each other.' I do hope you enjoy the story! As always, many thanks to Aishuu, for beta reading and moral support.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> **"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." - Gustav Mahler**  
> 

_ December 21, 2017 _

"Oatmeal raisin," Jack said without even thinking. 

He reached for the next pan to dry, but Bitty blinked at up at him a few times from his spot by the sink before responding, dripping skillet still in hand.

"Are you sure?" Another pause. "Is that really what you want, sweetpea?"

For a brief moment - not even a second - Jack thought he must have said something wrong. His anxiety had been riding high of late (not without good reason) and Bitty's puzzled face looked a lot like his perturbed face when viewed through that filter.

He could easily imagine Bitty being perturbed, disappointed, or even insulted to be told that the one cookie Jack wanted to make sure they had for their ornament making and tree trimming party on Saturday was something as pedestrian as oatmeal raisin. But when he took a moment to breathe, he could see that Bitty was genuinely puzzled.

"I'm sure." Not that he could explain even to himself why that was what had so immediately and forcefully come to mind. "And could you maybe make half of them with pecans?"

"Aw, you even said it right!" Bitty rose up on tip-toe to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "You _can_ be taught! Well, if oatmeal raisin with half pecans is what you want, then that is what you shall have. I have to admit, it does sound good after all the fried food we ate yesterday, and I'll tell you what, it'll be nice to make something I know by heart what with everything else I have going on - and are you _sure_ you're not asking for those just to make things easy on me?"

" _Ouais_. I'm sure." Jack pulled him in for a one-armed hug and a quick nuzzle to the top of the head before they fell back into their usual after dinner cleanup routine.

He did wonder if Bitty was right and that was part of why he was so quick to choose what he did. All of the other cookies Bitty was making as gifts, for requests, or for the half-dozen paid orders he had accepted, were fairly labor intensive, even for him.

There were sugar-dusted Linzer cookies sandwiched with four different varieties of homemade jam, spritz cookies that were squeezed out of something that looked like you could use it to vaccinate a cow, old-fashioned gingerbread (which was far more temperamental to work with than Jack had realized, at least according to the rant which also outlined how it really needed to be started no later than early November if you wanted _proper_ gingerbread), delicate tuiles that had to be baked in the smallest of batches then swiftly and carefully rolled into cigars, a dozen different shapes of cutout cookie with elaborate royal icing decoration, chocolate-raspberry and vanilla-peppermint pinwheels, lacy florentines with rippled chocolate on the back, and - of course - three different flavors of macaron with six different fillings.

Dozens upon dozens of cookies were already lined up like toy soldiers on the stackable cooling racks set up on the sheet-covered pool table. Dozens more were already tucked away in Tupperware boxes, nestled between sheets of waxed paper. More had yet to be made over the next few days, but from the look of things, Bitty had blasted far ahead of schedule today; far enough ahead that Jack strongly suspected procrastibaking.

He didn't know what Bitty would be trying to avoid, given that the cookies and some of the Christmas party orders from his fledgling personal chef business were the only things that were likely to be weighing on his mind. 

This past April, however, during the last horrible weeks of Bitty's senior thesis (and the closest they had ever come to breaking up), Jack had learned the hard way that pushing too hard when Bitty was like this tended to have a catastrophically opposite effect to what was desired.

On the other hand, a familiar prickle at the back of his mind had him itching to know what was going on, and if it was somehow his fault. Knowing the source of that prickle did little to make it go away.

Jack told himself firmly to wait things out for a little while. If it was something serious, he had to trust that Bitty would tell him.

Or maybe Bitty was working up to how to say whatever it was, because it was that horrible.

Again, Jack told his the little inner voice to shut up.

The dishes were done, but Bitty wasn't. His muscles shifted appealingly as he hefted two large dutch ovens - one in each hand - to the stovetop with little apparent effort. "I'm going to go ahead and get the tourtière filling done so it's one less thing to do tomorrow."

Jack said nothing about the obvious avoidance of things _today_ and perched on one of the stools behind the breakfast bar. 

"Aren't you going to go watch the game, sweetpea? Y'all are playing the Bruins tomorrow."

"And they're playing the Islanders _tonight_ , which means that tomorrow they'll be tired and we'll be rested. The coaches will brief us on anything we need to know." He also knew himself well enough to know that in his current mood, trying to study tomorrow's opposition would lead to overthinking would lead to squirrel-brain would lead to a bad night's sleep would lead to doing not as well as he could in the actual game. Besides...

"I'd rather keep you company, anyways." 

Jack couldn't imagine a time when Bitty's smile wouldn't cause a delightful little quiver in his stomach.

"Well now, aren't you the sweetest? D'you feel up for helping out or not so much?"

Jack mulled it over. He _was_ feeling a little unsettled and uncertain, and working with Bitty instead of just watching him might help keep his brain from spinning off in unproductive directions. Or spinning off too far, anyway.

"I'll help," and the words were barely out of his mouth before a bag of potatoes, a peeler, and a knife were plunked in front of him. Clearly, Bitty already had a good read on Jack's mood. "But isn't it a little early to start the tourtière?" Christmas Eve was fully three days away. 

"Nope. Oh, and cut those into one-inch chunks and dump 'em in this pot when you're done. Anyhow, I've got the dough all done and portioned out in the fridge, and tomorrow I'll assemble and freeze them and trust that people actually read the cooking directions I give them."

Ah, right. This was the first order Bitty had taken for something where he couldn't oversee the entire cooking process from stem to stern, and Jack got why that made him nervous.

"Do I at least get to taste the filling before you send these off to Marty?" Even though she didn't celebrate Christmas, his Mémé had never been one to turn her nose up at a food-related tradition, and Jack had fond memories of the savory meat pie (made with beef and lamb rather than pork, of course) and slightly less fond memories of the fancy Yule log cakes that always looked better than they tasted.

Maybe Bitty could make a Yule log that would actually taste good.

"Of course, silly! And better than that, I'm making enough so there'll be an extra one just for the two of us, and I'll bake it off for our Christmas Eve supper," Bitty said, not even trying to pronounce _réveillon_ , which maybe said he wasn't in the mood for chirps, which would mean something about his state of mind, and what was bothering him...

Jack took a deep, slow breath and listened on what Bitty was saying instead of overanalyzing what he wasn't. And what _was_ said was that they were going to have tourtière on Christmas Eve, just like he did as a child. It may have only been six or seven times that it actually happened, but it hung large and bright in his memory. 

It wasn't something he had thought to ask for, which made having it all the more special.

He liked the thought of maybe doing this every year from now on.

Then, when Bitty started fretting about how one of the meat pies was going to an old friend of Marty's on the Rangers, and how this felt like _disloyalty_ and _treason_ , the rest of Jack's worry bubbled away with his laughter.

"This is far from being funny, mister! This is a genuine dilemma!" Bitty's enjoyment of his own outrage was punctuated with a dramatic jab of his wooden spoon. "What am I supposed to do once my business really gets up and running and some of the damn Bruins try to hire me to cook for them?"

Jack tried to make it look like he was giving it serious consideration. What Bitty said could happen - it seemed like half the NHL already knew Bitty as a source of jam and pie.

"Charge them double," he said at last in his best press conference monotone.

One he finally caught his breath from laughing so hard, Bitty started the meat browning and adjusted the burner under the potatoes.

"Seriously, though, Bits. If someone wants to hire you and they're good to work for and they'll pay what you're asking, you should take the job. Once we get the kitchen set up in our new place, that is." The current excess of cookies in their apartment, while festive, was verging on claustrophobic. "I can't wait to see what happens when you have three ovens and eight burners and decent storage space to play with."

Bitty just _hmmm'd_ and jabbed at the browning meat. Jack's chest tightened, and his pulse thrummed high in his throat.

"Bits?"

"It's just... are you sure about the house?"

This was different from asking if he was sure about the cookies. That had been puzzled. This was plaintive.

"It's okay if you're not, really it is," Bitty continued. "I just don't..."

He stopped, and swallowed hard, blinking rapidly. Jack's heart sank. 

"You don't what, bud?"

Bitty braced his hands on the counter, head hanging low. His jaw clenched and unclenched a few times, and then he let out a long breath. "We're buying a house in the middle of the dang _season_ , Jack! Yes, I love that house, but there have to be other houses out there I could love just as much. I can tell you've been more wound up than usual what with everything - "

_Shit._

" - and I'm worried that this is just going to put that much more stress on you, and... oh, _hell._ "

Bitty swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and sniffled.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's stupid of me to get upset. That's the last thing you need on top of everything else."

Jack was back around the counter and had his arms around Bitty before Bitty had even finished speaking. He held Bitty tight and nuzzled into his hair.

"You're never stupid, bud." He gave Bitty a little squeeze-and-shake, and felt more than heard the laugh it brought out. "Maybe not the world's best student, but never stupid. _Never_. And if you're worried about something, you know I'd rather know about it, right?"

"I know." It came out both laughing and a little forlorn. "It just ain't always easy to remember that, you know?"

Jack knew.

"Well, it's a good thing I'll always be there to remind you, eh? Also, I _am_ sure about the house."

Bitty answered him with a kiss before shaking him off gently so he could get back to the cooking. "In the interest of full disclosure, I do have something on my mind, but it's nothing to do with you or the house or your contract or any of it. It's more... holiday stuff, I guess. I do want to talk about it, but just not this second? But _please_ don't worry about it, hon."

"I'll try."

Jack watched as Bitty drained the potatoes and left them covered in their pot to continue steaming. Next, he tipped onions, garlic, a prep dish full of spices, and a scoop of water from the potatoes into each pot of meat and set the burners to low.

Bitty held up the timer he had just set. "Couch? We've got some time to kill if you decide you do want to catch some of the game."

"Yes to the couch, no to the game."

"Who are you and what did you do with my boyfriend?"

"Ha ha." Jack detoured to plug in the tree. There were no ornaments on it yet - that would happen at Saturday's party - but he had strung the lights that morning before heading to practice. "Dim the lights, bud?"

Once that was done, Bitty snuggled up next to him on the couch. The tree shone soft and steady, the pinpoints of light echoed faintly in the cityscape outside.

"How many strings of lights did you put on that thing, Jack?" Bitty asked softly.

"Lots." He'd worked them well in towards the trunk, aiming for an even distribution of bulbs throughout. If it didn't have a lot of lights on it, then what was the _point_ of a Christmas tree?

"I like it."

"It's one of my favorite parts of the holiday."

Bitty laughed. "I'm not surprised, what with how you watched the menorah until every single candle burned down."

The menorah still sat on its table in front of the balcony window, but at some point today Bitty must have removed it to get the wax off and give it a polish. Its elegant art nouveau curves were silver-gilt swirls in the light of the Christmas tree, reminding Jack of the candlelight that had shone there last night and for so many (too few) nights when he was a child.

"I used to do that when I was at my Mémé's for Hanukkah. She used to worry that I'd hurt my eyes, but she never tried to stop me, either. I also used to sneak downstairs at night and sit by the tree at home."

"Didn't your folks celebrate Hanukkah at home?"

Jack was quiet for a good, long while, puzzling through the tangle of emotions the question raised. 

"N-not as such. Papa was usually on the road for most if not all of it," which he knew was more excuse than explanation, "and Maman grew up Catholic. Well, sort of."

Bitty made a softly curious _hm?_

"She used to joke that she was brought up lapsed Catholic, meaning that her family didn't go to church, but she was always very aware of what church they weren't going to."

This time, the _hm_ was unamused, and Jack winced, recalling Bitty's own complicated relationship with his and his family's faith. Or maybe 'religion' was the better word. Anyhow, it seemed that whatever it was had been entwined through Bitty's childhood the way hockey had been through Jack's.

"But Christmas, you know, eh? Having a tree was traditional, and besides, Maman and Papa always had a big party during the break."

He had never liked those parties. Or the command appearances he was required to make as a child or the uncomfortable clothing or the way his hockey uncles would chirp him thinking it was all in good fun while he took it far too seriously.

But he liked the trees. They always had two of them. One was in the living room and was at least eight feet tall and kitted out with coordinating, themed decorations that were changed up every year. That one was for the parties. 

The one Jack liked best as a child was kept in the kitchen, and was home to a variety of novelty ornaments (almost all hockey-related) and all of the clunky and malformed ornaments Jack had made throughout pre-school and grade school. There were even a few that Maman had made as a child, and Jack remembered feeling so proud to see things he had made hanging next to hers.

As a teenager, he found it embarrassing and tacky.

The two winters he spent at home between rehab and Samwell, it was just another reminder of how much he had fucked up and how much he had lost.

Now he wondered if he might be able to wheedle a couple of those old home-made ornaments off his parents for his and Bitty's tree as a reminder of the good parts of holidays past.

He also wondered about the glorious junk drawer of a Christmas tree he saw at Moomaw's when they went to Madison last Christmas, with its child-crafted and child-chosen ornaments crammed in next to delicate glass antiques, and how it was given pride of place in her living room instead of being sequestered in the kitchen.

He looked forward to seeing what his and Bitty's tree looked like after the party on Saturday, bedecked with their own and their friends' contributions (and boy, he hoped that Holster and Shitty would obey both the letter _and_ the spirit of the 'no dick ornaments' rule).

"Well, I'm glad we could celebrate here in our own home, even if you had to miss half the nights, sweetie."

It took Jack a moment to bring his thoughts back to the here and now and to a different holiday. "Oh, it'll be like that, sometimes. We'll celebrate when we can, and when we can't..." He shrugged. "Well, we'll figure it out."

He wished he could talk to his grandmother about what _she_ did if she had to miss a night or more of lighting the candles, but she had died when he was fourteen. One thing he would always regret was that he didn't have as much time for her as a tween and teenager as he did as a child. 

When he was a child, he had all the time in the world for her stories about her mother's adventures in Paris's intellectual and artistic circles, or her own life as a teenage girl and young woman in the Montréal of the forties and fifties, or the very few memories she had been willing to share about her childhood in France. He wished he could hear those stories again. 

"I'm just glad your folks let you have her menorah," Bitty said, and there was something lurking there, the same something Jack had been picking up from him all night. He knew Bitty well enough to know that his earlier outburst wasn't _entirely_ about the house.

"It was her grandmother's - maybe her great-grandmother's - before her. Anyhow, I think it was one of the few family things her mother was able to bring with them to Canada." He couldn't be entirely sure, because the people who knew such things were gone. As a child, he hadn't thought to ask why her family left France so quickly and took so little with them. At the time, he had thought it was like when Papa didn't pack until the last minute for a roadie and then had to buy underwear at the hotel. He knew better, now. "It reminds me that there's a lot more to my family story than just hockey, you know?"

Sometimes, he wondered how much of his interest in history was due to his grandmother and all of the stories he hadn't fully understood at the time and hadn't made the time to hear when he could understand.

"So why didn't your father want to keep it?"

"That... is a good question. I know he and his mother fought a lot about all the things he did - or stopped doing - because of hockey, so there's that."

Jack wasn't sure how much of that was because Papa felt like he had to versus how much was because he wanted to, but the end result was the same. Jack couldn't judge because he knew all too well how the hockey world could make you hide important parts of yourself even from yourself.

"I also think he feels guilty about not doing more to make sure I felt more connected to his actual family and not just his hockey family." Or for the fact that he barely said two words to his mother in the decade before Jack's birth, but he didn't want to say that, not with things still a little fragile between Bitty and Suzanne, and not with that thread of sadness in Bitty's questions. "So, and I know this feels like a change of topic but I promise it isn't, do you want to know why I feel good about the house?"

He _shouldn't_ feel good about it. They would be closing on it right as the Falcs were starting their playoffs push, and overseeing renovations as the season was ending. Then there was the matter of his contract. Yes, it looked like his agent and management would have a contract extension worked out by the end of December and the no-trade clause he so desperately wanted would kick in next season, but anything could happen between now and then.

Management could dump him to free up cap space. Papa had been in talks about a contract extension with the Habs and had just learned that he was going to be a father when he was traded to the Penguins. Or they could - 

He took a deep breath, and he pushed aside that particular basket of 'what-ifs.' Instead, he focused on the house, and how it sort of snuck into view when you rounded a corner. 

On the carriage house where Bitty could have the professional grade kitchen he deserved.

On how you could see a distant sliver of ocean from their bedroom window.

On the hundred and fifty years of its history Jack was looking forward to researching.

On the wide back porch overlooking a wooded back yard and a tree that would be perfect for climbing or for a swing.

And on the deep bay window in the front. That was the important thing. That was what he needed to focus on now.

"It's because when we lit the candles last night, I could picture what our menorah will look like in that front window next year. _Our_ front window. And then I was thinking how it will also be a perfect spot for our tree."

Bitty gave him a watery smile. He lifted Jack's hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to his fingers, and there might have been more than that, but of course that was when the kitchen timer went off. 

Bitty didn't let go of Jack's hand when he stood up, just smiled and tugged him along towards the kitchen.

The smell took him back twenty years and even more.

Bitty roughly mashed the potatoes and mixed half into each pot. He checked and adjusted the seasoning, then nodded in satisfaction before holding out a spoonful of filling for Jack to taste.

It didn't taste exactly like Mémé's, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that this was the first taste of the tourtière he would be having on Christmas Eves for years and years to come.

They carried the dutch ovens full of hot filling out to the balcony where they would cool faster than they would indoors. Bitty shivered and Jack would have chirped him for going outside with bare feet, but something still hung in the air, heavy and unaddressed.

When Bitty went over to the pool table instead of coming right back to the couch to resume snuggling, Jack knew that whatever it was wouldn't be unaddressed for much longer. Bitty ducked down behind the table and its towers of cookies and when he re-emerged, he held a large box that was still wrapped in brown paper and sealed with far too much packing tape. From the way he carried it, it maybe weighed as much as one of those dutch ovens he'd been slinging around earlier.

"This came in the mail today," he said in a voice that was too small for such an ordinary statement. He placed the box on the coffee table and sat down. 

The return address said it was from Madison.

"Moomaw?" Jack asked. 

Bitty nodded. He sat hunched with his elbows on his knees, and he looked so god-damned beautiful and so god-damned scared in the light from the tree. He didn't take his eyes off the box as he spoke.

"I'm not sure if I told you, but there's this thing, she did it for all her kids and she's been doing it for all the grandkids and now the great-grandkids, I guess, where every year, every Christmas, she buys each kid in the family an ornament and packs it away in a box. One box for each kid, and one ornament for every year from birth until you turn eighteen. Sometimes she buys a different ornament for each kid, and sometimes she gets all of the same thing for everyone. Whatever strikes her fancy that year, I guess. Then, when you finally get your own place and have your own Christmas tree, she gives you your box so your tree has a good start." He swallowed, hard. "You know. _Family_ ornaments. Like every good tree should have." 

That was when he broke down.

"Oh, bud..."

Jack pulled Bitty against his side and just held him while Bitty let himself cry quietly for a while.

This was their third Christmas as a couple, and the first spent in a home that was _theirs_. Even though Bitty had visited him in this very apartment their first Christmas together, it was early enough in their relationship that it still felt like _Jack's_ place.

Last Christmas, they went to Madison at Suzanne's request. There was a sense that with Bitty getting ready to graduate, this might well be his last Christmas in his old home for a good long time. Or maybe ever.

The experience was mixed, to say the least. Coach and Suzanne were okay, or at least they were trying to be. They wanted Bitty there, there was no doubt about that. They even wanted _Jack_ there.

Then Christmas Eve happened. Moomaw had invited them over to dinner along with the rest of the extended Phelps family. There would be Christmas Eve service at the church, where there would be the lighting of candles and singing of carols, and then everyone would descend on Moomaw's place for food and games and presents.

Jack had watched the excitement and the dread building in Bitty for days, and then, when they were having breakfast Christmas Eve morning, Suzanne gently, circuitously suggested that maybe the two of them would rather have a nice, quiet evening in to spare themselves all the chaos and craziness of a Phelps family Christmas (she knew how tuckered out poor Dicky was from finals, and Jack had been having a rough season and could use the break, right?), and they could go visit Moomaw - just the four of them - on Christmas Day.

Even now, Jack had no idea if Suzanne was genuinely trying to spare the two of them from the stares and whispers at church and the snubs at family dinner, if she was trying to spare _herself_ the pain and embarrassment, or if it had been an edict she was reluctantly passing along from someone else.

All Jack knew was that Bitty had spent that evening curled up next to him on the couch, too sad and hurt to even cry, while Jack watched the lights on the Bittles' tree flicker on and off, on and off.

Breakfast the next day at Moomaw's was nice, if subdued. Moomaw seemed genuinely happy to see them and genuinely sorry they couldn't be there the night before, but Jack knew just how much Bitty could hide behind a pleasant and polite mask. 

Moomaw no doubt had the equivalent of a black belt in the the Southern art of weaponized niceness.

Bitty prodded the box with his foot. "This _should_ be my ornament box, Jack, but it's much too heavy for just that. I honestly have no idea what's in here, but I don't want to be alone when I open it. I thought maybe things were okay between us, but Moomaw got real quiet when I told her a few weeks back I wasn't going back to Madison for Christmas."

Jack rubbed small circles between Bitty's shoulders in lieu of saying anything. He knew how gifts could be weapons. His grandmother had left the menorah to Papa in her will, and it was clear that it was a message as much as it was an inheritance. Jack couldn't help thinking that claiming it and using it to bring light into his and Bitty's home had been an act of mercy both to it and to his father.

Bitty gave a little huff of laughter that didn't carry any humor at all. "Actually, I'm pretty sure what I said was that I was _staying home_ for Christmas. I'm sure _that_ went over a treat." He sat up straight, squared his shoulders, and slapped his knees. "Okay. Let's do this."

It took a few minutes to find the box-cutter, but once they did, Bitty didn't hesitate to slit through the packing tape and remove the paper. Once the box was open, and the wadded up newspaper removed, Bitty lifted out a large flat box printed with snowflakes. 

"This _looks_ like one of her ornament boxes," he said warily. Inside was a pasteboard grid dividing the box into twenty-four squares. All but six had an ornament in them, and on top was a large envelope with _Dicky_ written in tidy cursive. Bitty put the envelope aside gently, as if it might explode if he jostled it.

"I want to see what all is in here before I even think of looking at that," he said, voice tight. He handed the ornament box to Jack, then reached back inside and pulled out a hinged metal box with the Land O'Lakes logo and artwork on it. 

Bitty's eyes went as wide as Jack had ever seen them. "This is Moomaw's baking box!"

He flipped it open and riffled through the contents. It was mostly handwritten recipe cards, with some pre-printed cards and newspaper clippings tucked in. From what Jack could see, nearly every card and clipping had layers of annotations and was stained, smudged, or singed from frequent use. As he looked at each recipe in turn, Bitty kept up a quick, quiet commentary that was mostly variations on the theme of _oh, my goodness!_

Finally, he put the box on the couch next to him, stroking it like he sometimes did Señor Bun.

"She's - oh, goodness - she's had this since she was first married! I know she's been talking about giving out some of her stuff to the folks who would appreciate it now that she's slowing down some, like I know she said she'd be giving her Joy of Cooking to Judy - there's all kinds of notes in there, and Judy's the one who cooks more than bakes, but... _oh, my goodness_." 

Bitty looked at the envelope for a moment, much less scared of it than before, but went back to the box because there was still something much heavier than a recipe tin in there.

He took a deep breath, then reached in and pulled out the biggest cast iron skillet Jack had ever seen. It was obviously quite old, and the interior was so well seasoned it might have been carved from black glass. Bitty didn't say anything for a good long while - just sat there holding the pan up in front of him much like Arthur might have done with the sword he just pulled from the stone.

"Bud?" Jack asked when the silence went on too long

"If several nice Southern ladies show up here looking to disembowel me," Bitty said in a strangled voice, "this would be why."

He lowered the pan to the floor and picked up the envelope. The card inside was a generic enough Christmas card, with poinsettias and glitter, but both sides of the inside and half of the back were filled with Moomaw's neat handwriting. Jack continued to rub Bitty's back as he read, and carefully did not look over Bitty's shoulder as he squinted to read in the dim light.

Bitty had to scrub away a few tears, and there were sniffles, but he was smiling. He tucked the card back in the envelope. He might offer to let Jack read it later, or he might not.

"Good?" Jack asked.

" _Very_ good." Bitty looked exhausted, but also more relaxed than he had in days. "I almost wish I was going to be there to see what happens when Moomaw lets it slip who got all of the family pie and cake and cookie recipes _and_ her chicken pan."

"You think she'll tell?"

" _Oh,_ yes. She'll just drop it in conversation like it's no big thing, but they'll all know it's a big old 'fuck you and the horse you rode in on' to the aunts and cousins who behind her back to tell Mama I wasn't welcome last year." He frowned. "And maybe a bit of a one to Mama and Aunt Judy, too, for not standing up for me more."

"So that's what happened last year?"

"Yup." Bitty popped the 'p' at the end with great satisfaction, and flapped Moomaw's card at him. "I should probably give Mama a heads-up about the drama. I know she still feels bad about last year, but that sure was a bad position they put her in."

Jack wasn't sure he would be quite so quick to forgive, but then he looked at how Papa had worked so hard at repairing his relationship with Mémé over the last years of her life and thought that maybe he would be.

"Can we take a look at your ornaments, bud?" 

"Yes!" 

They then spent the next half hour or so looking through the ornaments. They were a mishmash of styles and materials, from the engraved silver _Eric's First Christmas 1995_ ornament to the bobbin-lace angel to the mass-produced Atlanta Thrashers ornament dated the year before they moved to Winnipeg. There were three bunnies (glass, wood, felt), a clear glass ball with a figure skating tableau inside, a snowman, and a multitude of baking-themed ornaments. Jack's favorite was a crystal snowflake that would dazzle in the tree lights. Bitty's was a little wooden Nativity scene that was painstakingly built inside a walnut shell.

"Do you want to put these on the tree now, or when the guys come over on Saturday, or do you want to do it after that?"

Bitty thought about it. Jack wondered if he was thinking about the reason he had felt the need to host a party where their friends would help them make paper chains, string popcorn, and make other stupid shit to cover up the emptiness of their tree. "Let's do it Christmas Eve, just the two of us, okay?"

Last Christmas Eve had been just the two of them, but this year it was as different as night was from day. "That sounds good, bud. Maybe make a tradition of it?"

"Mmm. I like that. Maybe the party can be its own tradition, too? It's be the sort of thing that'll be fun when there's kids around, you know?"

Jack could picture it. Could see the tree in that bay window, decked in wonky paper chains and strands of popcorn and hundreds of lights. The children helping to put them up were little more than fuzzy ideas, but they were there.

(He could more clearly picture a small child looking up in wonder at the candles on his grandmother's menorah. He had _been_ that child, once upon a time.)

"It seems to me that there's at least one thing we might want to take care of before we bring children into it, bud," Jack teased.

Bitty glared at him, but the corners of his mouth were twitching. "That had better not be the start of a proposal, mister."

Jack smirked. "Oh, trust me. You'll know when I'm proposing."

He had _plans_. Oh yes, he did. Valentine's Day wasn't that far away.

"Is that so?" Bitty drawled, and from the way he was failing to fight back a grin, it was obvious he had plans of his own.

"It is." _Let's see who gets there first, eh?_

His plans could be adapted for New Year's easily enough.

"I see," Bitty replied haughtily. _Challenge accepted, Mister Zimmermann._

Maybe Christmas Eve would be a better target. He still had time to prepare.

They settled back on the couch, Bitty half pillowed on Jack and so at ease that it was painfully clear just how stressed he had been earlier. No wonder he'd had the outburst about the house. Jack played with Bitty's hair and watched as Bitty went through Moomaw's recipe tin again.

"The original recipes for half of what's up there are in here," Bitty said, still going through the box and pointing at the pool table with one bare foot. "Nearly every Christmas cookie in the Phelps family repertoire."

"Were you working off photocopies or memory?"

"Oh, a little of each." He pulled out a card, and Jack recognized Moomaw's handwriting. "Here's your oatmeal-raisin cookie recipe. I remember working off of this card with Moomaw when I was six years old. Not that I need a recipe anymore to make those, of course," he said, putting it back in its spot.

"You used to make those all the time back at the Haus, right? I remember - _oh_."

"Hm? What is it, sugar?"

"You made them for me and hid them in my suitcase. After, um, Kent." 

He remembered finding them when he unpacked his bag in Montréal, and smiling when a moment before there had been very little to smile about. 

"Aw, is that why you wanted me to make them?"

Jack kissed Bitty's cowlick by way of answer. He remembered feeling something shift when he found the cookies. He couldn't identify it at the time, but he could now. "I still have your note, by the way."

Bitty twisted around so he could give Jack a kiss. "You silly, silly boy. You know this means I'll be making them every Christmas from now on, right?"

"Good. Another Bittle-Zimmerman tradition for the books."

"'Bittle-Zimmerman?' Is _that_ what we're going with?" Bitty said with mock disdain, and from there, things quickly devolved into a chirp-and-tickle fight.

Their future name didn't matter. Nor did the fact that they weren't married or even engaged (yet), or that they would only be in their current home for another six months, or that one holiday had only just ended and the other had yet to begin.

What mattered was that Jack could see the shape of what their holidays would be for years to come.

Lighting his grandmother's menorah. A raucous (and messy) craft party with their closest friends. A quiet Christmas Eve at home, where they would eat tourtière and put the family Christmas ornaments on the tree. Cookies that were simple but a solid reminder of the love that had existed between them long before Jack could see it.

True, there was some pain and regret that could associated with each of these things - strained and fractured relationships, things unsaid until it was almost too late, a longing for family - but there was also hope. Wasn't that what holiday traditions should be about, especially now, in the longest nights of the year?

Soon enough, he and Bitty were quiet again. They stretched out on the couch together, and it didn't take long after that for Bitty's breathing to even out into sleep. Jack knew would have to wake him in an hour or so to go bring the pots in from the balcony, but for now he was content to lie there and watch, entranced, how the light played across Bitty's face.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was wondering, Shitty and Holster do NOT obey the rules. Just FYI.
> 
> Here is some background detail for those who are curious:
> 
> Hanukkah in 2017 took place from December 12-20
> 
> The tourtière recipe I used for reference in the fic is [this one](https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/christmas-tourtiere-recipe). WARNING: The "More recipes to explore" option in the KAF recipe library is as bad as Wikipedia when it comes to leading you down rabbit holes from which you may never emerge.
> 
> I do not, alas have an image for Mémé's menorah. It would, however, be in [this style](https://www.bidsquare.com/online-auctions/skinner/pair-of-art-nouveau-achille-gamba-candelabra-537139).
> 
> Moomaw's baking box looks like [this one](https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-land-lakes-recipe-box-tins-428793333). My mother used to have one, but it got lost in one move or another over the years, which I am very sad about. 
> 
> Feel free to visit me at my [tumblr](http://sophia-prester.tumblr.com)! (I follow back from [this one](http://missweber.tumblr.com).)


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